Rather than pushing system specs as the selling point like Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has concentrated on the innovation of Wii\'s system capabilities. One of these capabilities is Wii\'s online download game service, which will allow users access to every Nintendo game ever released on Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64, as well as other retro-games from 3rd party developers.

The Nintendo Wii is looking to innovate in an industry adrift with conformity by bringing about a revolution. It\'s trying to be the \"Guy Fawks\" of the gaming industry, in a manner of speaking. And in doing so, it\'s building a lot of hype. How can the Wii live up to all that hype? What does the Wii expect of gamers?

When Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy, mentioned his dislike of Nintendo\'s controller emphasis in an interview with Gamesutra.com, it raised the eyebrow of at least one of our editors. Aaron Stanton takes a moment to reflect on the irony inherent in the maker of Katamari - a brilliant game with a terrible control scheme - criticizing Nintendo for paying too much attention to how a game should be interacted with. Takahashi has become known for holding himself separate from the rest of the video game industry, as well as being able to think outside the box, but there are some parts of Katamari that could have benefited from a little influence from the mainstream.

With more and more movies coming out of Hollywood based on videogames and comics, people are beginning to wonder why so few seem to translate well to the screen. Part of the problem is that there are business models in place that are prevent great adaptations that stay true to their original source material. Monica takes an insider\'s look at the relationship between movies, games and comics.

Five girls from Ravenna, Ohio face possible charges for hanging up Super Mario Bros. question cubes around town on April Fools day. Part of a Net-wide phenomenon, hanging SMB cubes is a very cool thing. How surreal would it be to happen upon these things in real life? Apparently too surreal for the citizens of Ravenna, who called out the hazardous materials unit and the bomb squad to remove the boxes. Of course, we always knew Ohio had issues (that last election didn\'t go so well...). Get Shawn\'s reaction here.

We felt so bad for Matt having to lug that big mailbag all the way up to the GF! Offices that we moved his desk into the basement where the mail drops directly. Then we forgot about him. As it turns out, Matt\'s been down there the whole time, trapped under a crate of old Atari Age magazines and sandwiched between a box of old toys and a broken Wizard of Wor machine. Aaron found Matt when he went down to fetch a couple old floppy disks we needed to shimmy up an uneven leg on our new company massage table. It was too late for Matt, but he was clutching this latest edition of the GF! Mailbag in one hand, and had used Legos to spell out something about how Jeremy still can\'t beat his Gamerscore. Click here for what may very well be Matt\'s last Mailbag ever (unless we\'re totally lying to you, which is also possible).

Xbox Live is an excellent gaming service, and by all accounts the best thing going for ease of use and consistent reliability. It\'s the only online game in town so far when it comes to the home console, too. But that is about to change: With Nintendo and Sony both rolling out competing online gaming services this year, Xbox Live needs to be at the top of its game. So far it has been doing well, but we thought we\'d help out by offering up a few ideas we have for improving the Xbox Live service. Check out Shawn\'s editorial here.

The state of West Virginia has partnered with game publisher Konami to bring Dance Dance Revolution into hundreds of school physical education programs. The deal will roll out over 700 Dance Dance Revolution arcade machines, beginning with the state\'s 103 middle/junior high schools. The officials are doing the right thing, but they\'re citing the wrong reasons. DDR is not a way to combat the sedentary lifestyle of the youth, it\'s a way to create a modernized physical education curriculum that does what it should: engages students in realistic physical activity. Shawn steps up to the soapbox in this editorial.

The gaming industry has grown large; Hollywood large. This means that while we can expect to find more and more gamers in the general population, we can also expect large companies to milk that success for all it\'s worth. If you think the images shown in game ads are accurate, think again; the people you see in video game ads tend to be more telling about the demographic they\'re targeting than about the current audience. Someone is trying to make video games cool, and it cramps our style.

Ted Rueter\'s editorial trashing game studies and game design programs in colleges and universities has really gotten the dander up around the GF! offices. One of our resident gaming academics, Laurie Taylor, who is finishing her PhD in English studying games, responds to Rueter\'s criticisms in the best possible way: refutation and redirection. Laurie points out the wonderfully sensible fact that if people want less violent, better games, then they had better study games in order to find out how to create those new experiences.